In the Face of Death — http://thegodjourney.com/2012/06/29/in-the-face-of-death/

For those looking to live outside the box of religious performance and inside the love of an awesome father, this is The God Journey. And we're back and I'm still in Vicaia, California with Dave Coleman. Hi Dave. Good morning again. We're still right back to back. So I don't know if these will air back to back online, but just gave me a chance to talk to you and which I always love and thought I'd drag the rest of whoever's listening to this podcast into your house with me so if you don't mind the roomful of guests we have. You're welcome. Even though we can't see them. But if you ever get near Vicaia, Dave and Donna spread a pretty good table so put them up. Give us a ring. Really? You betcha. Man that's scary. You don't know how many people that could include. It's always strange for me to be back in Vicaia. We lived here 15 years and a lot of great memories of this town, a lot of great friends that live here and there are also some painful moments and some unreconciled relationships in this town. So it's always a bit awkward to be here, but I always, the people I enjoy here I enjoy a lot so that's good and the painful things you know it's kind of 15 years ago so kind of passed most of that I think. Let that lie where it lies. Oh yeah. But you keep living on here where it's 175 degrees outside today and we're already sweating and dude there are cooler places to live. You know this don't you? And Melrose Park? Melrose Park. I don't know where that is. No. Newberry Park? Are you making fun of my address? Newberry Park. You're making fun of my address? Yeah. Oh boy. I'm the coast next to Barbra Streisand. We don't tell people where I live. No I'm not next to Barbra Streisand, A, B. I'm not on the coast. Gee whiz. Now you've made it something it is in Malibu Beach. It is, no we're not on Malibu Beach, but we are, the weather last night was 55 degrees is the low and going to get up to about 72 today so I'm tough weather. But I can't get you to come visit, it's been three years I've been begging you to come visit me. Are you ever going to come? Yes. Yeah? Yes we will. When I kill my dogs is that what it's going to take since you're allergic to the hounds unfortunately. And if you love Sarah you're going to love her hounds because Sarah is a hound lover. I know that's great. But we can banish them to the outdoors when you come and we've got a bedroom they never go in so you could obviously say the night with us. Hope you do sometime. You listen to the John Beaumont interview a little bit did you? Yes I did both of them very good. Yeah. Yeah. Fun guy. We had Leah wrote us this. She said this was absolutely beautiful and resonated with what God has been leading me toward for so many years. This conversation left me with the feeling of a warm blanket on a cool brisk morning so comforting as if God himself was holding me close. That's a podcast for you so if you didn't catch John you might want to go back and catch John Beaumont. I did a couple of podcasts. Jack Gray a little bit earlier. Did you listen to Jack's? You didn't get a chance to listen to those. No. You might want to. Jack such different guys. Both Kiwis well Jack's actually from Scotland but he's been in New Zealand long enough to be a Kiwi. Totally different personalities both in the twilight years of their life and I love that two men who've walked with God 60, 70 years probably longer come to this point in their life and they're totally different. You listen to the podcast you get a feel for that. John's outgoing man excited. He's got all kinds of stuff going. Jack's the most gentle, quiet, deep soul. Jack's like being in the rapids and John's like being in the rapids. Jack's like being in the cool little pond on the side of the stream and God makes himself known in both of them lives that have really taken shape over years but I did have you because I've had some chance to be with people kind of in the twilight moments of life talking about some life-ending kinds of things but Sharon in Australia wrote me this instead. I listened to a couple podcasts with the fellow who wrote so you don't want to church anymore with talking about you and as a nurse I have had some very disappointing interactions with hospital chaplains although this was years ago. I'd love to hear more from him about his work, supporting the grieving, dealing with death, with death become common experiences for all of us as we get older and particularly dealing with some of our parents and things. So you were a hospital chaplain how long? Good 10 years. Good 10 years and you've been retired from that, that was your last real gig I guess. Hospital chaplain at a time you had a pretty serious bout with cancer I mean you kind of got near death's door. Am I right? As I recall it. Yes. I was there. You were there. And I think it'd be fun, this is going to be the death podcast so that would be really fun. I don't think I'm going to listen to the death podcast but I've had other people say the same thing. You've mentioned some last week where you've been with people coming to death's door and you find that not often do Christian people come to death's door at peace That's true. Which is surprising because we're the ones who are supposed to say the better stuff is on the other side of this but that's not your experience. No. Why not? Well I can give you many examples but I would say the whole thing of expectation that you know I had done all this for God, I had been on this committee, that committee, I had been on this missionary trip, that missionary trip and somehow that has created a sense of God owes me. Entitlement. Entitlement. Wow. Which is really you know a basic issue in our society, I'm entitled. And when that. You can get lost on that for the rest of your life. But you know I've been at the bedside of dying clergy who were just totally angry. You know here I did all of this and now. What did they expect? Pain-free death? Yeah. To live. Just fall asleep one night and not wake up. Yeah, there was so much tension in my ministry and so forth and now I'm free and I want to go on my cruises and so on and so forth. I want to die earlier than I want to die. Yeah. And then often death is not pleasant. I mean these bodies when they wear out it's not a lot of fun. No. You keep telling me every time I say don't get old Wayne and no matter how much you tell me that it's not working. I got aches and pains I never used to have and never thought I would have so. Oh boy I'll tell you. So getting old isn't fun. That we know. No. That would argue for death's door being maybe a wonderful transition to something better. Yeah, there's so much feeling of as I mentioned this God owes me type thing and the other part of it is what I would call a real fear. A fear of God because I didn't perform like I was told I should perform. Part of it was what we talked about last week. You know you're going to get the video right after you die. Right. All the crud in your life and so they don't die in this I've got a loving father now who's. No. Can you imagine if you're the father coming home to your kids from work during the day and your kids are afraid to see so they all go running hide under their beds when dad comes home and I know the kids that do that because dad's earned that. But you would think God wouldn't want that. Wouldn't God want his kids running to him at that moment. You would think so. But. But let me share this one story with you which is one of the most sad stories that I've ever been a party to. There was a little dear little old white hair lady who was being taken care of by her daughter. She became a patient of hospice rather late and had only about a week to live is what the doctors told us. So I went to see her and she was lying in bed. Beautiful white hair just you know the picture of anybody's grandma and she was just breathing in pain from side to side from side to side back and forth and and I tried to speak with her and she wouldn't say anything but what she did say she kept saying tie tie tie. And so I went out and I talked to her daughter I said I don't know if she's trying to talk to me and you know what she's saying and she said yeah. She said when we were young there were three of us three daughters and our father was one of the first in the Second World War and he was killed early in the war and those were the days before insurance and she said in order to keep things going I know my mother had to work almost constantly two and three jobs and she said I know there were many times she fed us and when there wasn't even enough for her to eat but we attended a church which said that you know if you don't tithe you're going to hell. You're robbing from God. You're robbing from God and those were the days. But you don't believe by the way do you? Oh no. Okay good. But it's been taught. And the girl said her choice was to feed her starving children or tithe and she didn't and that has hung over her all of her life. Wow. We have talked with her. We have sent clergymen to speak with her but here she is in really spiritual agony and I spoke with the nurse on duty and I said is there anything we can do for her and the nurse said Dave we've given her all the painkillers that we possibly can and she died in complete agony because of this fear of God that had been created because she didn't do what she was supposed to do. Here's the one thing from her life 50 years ago that was going to make God mad at her at the end of it all. Wow. And that's how entrenched this performance stuff can be you know which will cause you your agony in fact in hospice when we would get the opening sheet where the nurse would do the intake and ask questions like what religion do you follow or do you belong to. I was happy when there was no religion because here I could go in and talk about the love of a God who really loves them without any conditions. I've had situations where I've gone into a religious home and they wouldn't even let me see the patient because the patient was mad at the church a pastor or elder or whatever. That seems to understand that part. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So when you see God not as this enduring presence you're going to beat but the God who's disappointed in you or angering you or that's where that performance that's why forgiveness is such an important reality for us that things are really washed away in the reality of what Christ did for us and God's not judging us based on performance. No. What did you find going on in your home? You've been with a lot of people at death's door. What did you find going on in your heart when you thought you were getting there you may be getting there sooner than you wanted. You remember? Oh yeah I do. Did you feel like you were at peace or were you? It was kind of interesting. The operation I went through for colon cancer was pretty severe because they took everything out looked at it and put it back to make sure there was no cancer had spread that they couldn't cut off and go from there. Yeah. Wow. So what had happened was they got the orders mixed up and they fed me and you can't really feed someone after a colon cancer operation at least for four or five or six days. Wow. For everything to gel and so on and so forth. But before the operation you don't eat either so that you're totally cleaned out. So anyway the nurse had brought in a tray of food shortly after the operation and when I came around which I simply devoured without even knowing it told us. Yeah wow. So three days after that in the middle of the night I started to vomit and then I went into dry heavings and then I went into convulsions and I knew then that this was going to be it because I knew the operation was quite lengthy and you're cut from top to bottom so to speak. So I knew that I would bust all the stitches at that early stage and so I called for the nurse and I said I'm convulsing. I said I need a shot of morphine. I said to calm down my body and she said I can't do it without doctors' orders and then that was the final word. I knew that was it and this was my time. But the interesting thing was that I just kind of said well lord it looks like I'm coming and there was a strange piece that just came over me and I just was lying there and the whole body was just in contortion so to speak. I didn't know what kind of people talk about near death experience and all that sort of stuff. I was there and the last thing I remembered just shortly before and I forced myself not to pass out and just before that the nurse came in with a vial filled with morphine with the needle about six inches long and I said go for it and that's how I did it. But right before then. You could put it in your drip. I'd say go for the drip man. There wasn't time for the drip. I had a six inch needle. I would prefer to die I think than be poked with a six inch needle. Well I hope you never have to make that joke. My dad said my dad had this surgery box thing on a gallbladder surgery of all three or four years ago and he had to be transferred to the University of San Francisco hospital and made some mistakes and he was really close to dying. We thought he was. And after he finally recovered he recovered and boy things turned around pretty quickly there finally. And I said were you afraid of dying? And he said no I was afraid I wouldn't die. I was so much afraid I was afraid to live. That's what he said. Yeah that's honest. It really is because you can get to that point. But no fear of what death might be for you. I mean you look at it now. You're much, I chose the most decrepit person I could think of for this podcast. Thank you. No problem. Even when you heard this C word for the first time, the cancer diagnosis. What are your thoughts about mortality? Does that change you? Does that feed into how you live daily? Do you live differently with a sense of mortality? Yeah you do because once you face it and you go through it then life changes. Your whole value system changes. You see things entirely different. You begin seeing things from the point of view of who are people and people are not to use their to be loved. People are, you know, if they're not God's children, they're potentially God's children and they're talking in the biblical sense of the word. And you look at it that way. Do I still get irritated with people now and then? Oh yeah some guy pulls out in front of me and that kind of thing. But you live your life with basically without fear. And you're able to say okay I don't have to react to that. I can just kind of respond to that. And that's a growing process. But it was for me a complete turn. And where you just say hey this thing, you're not in control of this thing. Is it less about achievements and things on your resume? Is it less about that and more about the people you love and know and the relationships you value? That's all over with. You don't think about what, you know... Because people look at my life oftentimes. I've published some books and I've made some waves in the world and people think that's successful. I look at your life and you know a defrocked pastor, wallpaper hanger for a while, hospice chaplain in a small community. I look at your life and I see tremendous fullness, a sense of success without all the trappings. And I mean success at a level that matters. I look at the success of my life externally. And I know how much that stuff doesn't matter. But people don't. I mean what's going on between Sarah and me right now is the most valuable thing in my life. And I would give up everything else. None of it. I feel like God's asked me to say some things in the world so I do things, podcasts and whatever to say some things into the world. But that's not where my life finds great value or joy. I'm just as happy being home with Sarah or having the grandkids over or like we had these friends from Ireland last weekend. I'm much more... It's the simple realities of life that have the most meaning. It's not that you've done a bestselling book, it's not. People think people know, people recognize you or invite you to come speak and I think that... I mean I look at your life as incredibly successful but I think other people could look at it going, wow, he never did anything huge even though you were a co-writer on the book with me. And I love that. I think that's a better model for success than what we hold up in the celebrities and performers and people in the world that catch the eye of the public but not too many people get opportunities for those things. If you measure success that way you're going to get pretty weary. How do you measure it? I think success is... can and should be measured only on a relational value. How do I feel about God? How does God feel about me? How can I work in the lives of people around me to lessen their fear, their anger, their apprehension? When I look at the life of Jesus he was always putting people at ease. Neither do I condemn you. And to me that's what success is. How do I relate to God and how do I relate to people? You said that to me one time, the measure of success of a man is how he treats his wife. You said that to me once. You really believe that stuff? I do believe it. And when I was in the church I would not allow an elder to be or not allow but I would not put up an elder for nomination unless I really looked at his relationship with his wife. Because to me that's where it's at. Has some of that changed, and we're talking about when you have a sense of mortality, did you have at a younger age more of this aspiring desire to achieve, achieve, achieve and this has been a change over time in your life or as you've always kind of been in this... No, it's been a change. As you work out of the performance thing and just relax with who you are in God's eyes then all this stuff leaves. I want to share some stuff with you from a book that someone sent me recently. And I didn't really want to read this book because it's a near-death experience. And it's a near-death experience of an atheist, interestingly enough. I don't know if you heard Steve Jobs when he passed away, the Apple mogul and he was a pain in the neck to everybody around the work for him. He wasn't a godly man by any stretch of anything. His last words when he died, he was coming right to the desk door and he kind of looked up from his bed and he said, Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow and then he died. Which is just, what does that mean? No one knows for sure what it means obviously but I thought that's intriguing. I'm not a fan of near-death experience books because I'm not sure what they are. Most of what I read just kind of panders to a Christian worldview that I don't find deeply settling in terms of how I know God. So I don't like books like this. There was one that was written by an atheist and his experiences, I found fascinating. Not because of it's a near-death experience but I'm thinking, wow, that's how I have engaged God inside this world. I've not had a near-death experience but what rings with authenticity is I think this is what God's like. I really do. Then he goes on to a bunch at Theology. The book is called My Descent Into Death by Howard Storm. He had all that. Then he had some kind of tear in his intestinal system happened to him in Europe and he almost died on a table, operating table. I'm just going to read a couple of excerpts early because I think that's the better part of the book to be honest. He kind of waxes eloquent on his theology now about God and some of that I didn't think with. But when he thinks he dies on this table he's drugged off by a bunch of demonic-like personalities that are just biting and devouring him. And he wrote this, I was alone in the darkness for time without measure I thought about what I had done all my life I had thought about hard work was what counted. My life was devoted to building a monument to my own ego, my family, my sculptures, my painting, my house, my gardens, my little fame, my illusion of power were all extensions of my ego all of those things were gone now and what did they matter? All those things that I had lived for were lost to me I mean a thing. All of my adult life I had been strong and confident that I could take care of myself now I was a worm cast into the outer darkness and had neither any strength nor power nor my inner rage to protect me interesting this inner rage to protect them ancient comment deal had stripped me of all my defense all of my life I had fought a constant undertone of anxiety, fear, dread and angst if I could become famous I could defeat powerlessness and beat death that's an interesting statement but if I didn't become famous then I'd die and my whole life would be meaningless so I didn't live in the present I had always striven for an unattainable eternal flame as my protection against oblivion how ironic it was to end up in the sewer of the universe with people who fed off the pain of others I had little genuine compassion for others and it dawned on me that I was not unlike these miserable creatures who had tormented me failing truly to love they had been led into the outer darkness where their only desire was to inflict their inner torment onto another devoid of love, hope and faith they craved intimacy but found it only to be a torment that was his experience if you want to describe hell or whatever I don't think you get to a better description and I love that sense of all the things you think are going to cheat death but I don't want to blame and power and have things that are extension of their own ego whatever I read through this man I've lived some of this I've lived in environments where people who crave intimacy are just destroying each other out of their own projection of their own needs so I don't know that this is hell and demons I think it's just life without God it is and then he called in the middle of this I know it's going to stretch people who feel like you were an atheist when you died so tough bananas but he didn't really die he came back to life so we don't know and he became a believer afterwards because in the middle of these creatures and this darkness and this devoid of hope and life he hears this voice saying call me, call me, call me and he knew it was Jesus but he didn't believe in Jesus and so he has this wonderful little bit of this inner trauma I'm going to call out to someone I don't believe in and then this is what happens and I love this too I love this description he says this loving luminous being came to him and he embraced him and he said this loving luminous being who embraced me knew me intimately he knew me better than I knew myself he was knowledge and wisdom I knew that he knew everything about me and I was unconditionally loved and accepted I experienced love in such intensity that no one known before was comparable his love was greater than all human love put together his love totally enveloped me and I realized that he had substance he was indescribably wonderful goodness power, knowledge and love he was more loving than one can begin to imagine or describe and Jesus did indeed love me this person of blinding glory loved me with overwhelming power after what I had been through to be completely known accepted and intensely loved by this incredible God-man of light surpassed everything I had ever known or could possibly imagine I had called out to Jesus and he came to rescue me I cried and cried from joy and the tears kept coming joy upon joy billowed through me he held me and caressed me like a mother with her baby like a father with his long lost prodigal son I cried all the tears of a lifetime of hopelessness and tears of shame I cried all the tears of joy and salvation I cried like a baby that couldn't stop crying I was permeated with tangible intense feelings and thoughts of love while moving toward the presence of great light the center of all being the one I was beyond thought it is not possible to articulate what occurred simply I knew that God loved me that God loved his creation that God is love itself this experience of love totally changed my life from the inside out no matter what happened I would always know that God loved me isn't that something? that's fantastic see I don't know the death thing and near death and whether he died and God saved him after death I'm not even interested in that he makes some arguments going on in the book but what he describes about the darkness of inner torment I've known that I want to try to reach some level of success to hide from my own sense of powerlessness and fear insecurity and then come to engage one that you know loves you more than anyone ever has or will who is all good and wonderful and loves you without any expectation or demand that you be different than you are right and yet that makes you different after that moment I mean that actually changes who you are any thoughts about I hesitate to recommend this book because there's a lot of theology in it I wouldn't embrace but those two descriptions of the pain of selfishness the emptiness the thirst for intimacy and only fine destruction and then finding this complete affection in the Father and then it really came out of this experience of believer he lived his life very differently and it's incredible it's incredible because that's the God I know what he describes in those four paragraphs about Jesus grabbing him and reading him that's the God I know and love and that's the God Paul knew too when they asked him at the Cecilolica you know when's he coming back when are all these things going to happen and he says you have no need to know this stuff but what you need to know is so shall we ever be with the Lord the relationship continues and to me that's that's it, that's the answer when it happens how it happens people talk about well we got to fear this date or that date all we do is look forward to the time when we shall have a closer more intimate relationship with him and that's it then we'll behold him face to face and be known by him know him as well as he knows us that'll be a moment I thought of that when my good friend of ours passed away about five years ago had cancer at 55 died fairly young and I was at his deathbed when he passed away and I just looked up at his now new widow and I said I wish I knew what Paul knows right now that's how I think about that when it's gone here your eye opens to something that I've got to be oh wow oh wow oh wow I mean to know scripture talks so much about this being a shadow of a bigger reality of our life on this earth being but a dew that's on the grass in the morning and if you're in the central valley here the dew lasts about 30 seconds on the grass before it's gone as the heat of the day heats up and I think there's great wisdom in seeing our life here that way and I think people who struggle with death they just see life on this planet as everything and when it's over even Christians it's like this is the best thing and now eternity and if you don't see your life here as like being a two year old or a three year old we hardly remember what it was when we were two or three good point and I think that's how God sees this life but we don't we think if we don't achieve if we don't get to a certain place in this life if we don't if we don't then our life is wasted or if someone dies young oh what a waste of a person because they died young instead of you know what this was only the antichamber of the greater reality this is the lobby this is the out front stuff and that's how I think of death and I'm not looking forward to it in the sense that I would miss my kids and grandkids undoubtedly I don't know that I would miss them I hope they would miss me if I wasn't here but I'm sure in God's eternity of things they're going to be along shortly in that whole sense of it but there's got to be such a wonder to that next moment after you take your last breath and that's not something that we need to be afraid of I like the word transition rather than death it's transitioning to a different reality I guess to a better reality and that's what I think of now like I said I got aches and pains I'm still young I'm only 59 we're not guaranteed nothing we don't know how long this goes and I've had some scary stuff in the last couple of years some medical things it turned out not to be much but they were looking for some very serious things and it's made me rethink it and I find that through this whole learning to live loved and knowing this kind of God that Howard storm describes meeting in this quasi death experience that he had I find that takes all the sting out of whatever it is that death is and I look forward to the process of it because it usually is kind of ugly and painful and all that and there's people around you that love you that are going to be all teary-eyed and all that good stuff but death itself is a transition into I don't know I don't know but it's enough to know he's there he's the one his presence yeah anything more about that I read you a lot of stuff but when we were chatting last night you you mentioned that this whole thing about age and that you're just not really that concerned about the future and that the effect that you have already produced your best stuff and I had to no I had to smile at that because you have reached the point where you don't feel you have to write 10,000 books the sequel to this the sequel to that and so forth and I smiled because now what you will do will be so much better because it's over as far as who am I trying to be or what do I have to accomplish and so on and so forth and I can't wait to see your next book or your next writing I'm serious because you're totally at peace yeah but it's funny because when I was so driven in securities they motivated me to write, to travel, to work hard to do all that stuff as God has been unwinding that in the last 15 years and those motivations go away and some of them have been gone for quite a while it's interesting now that I find it easier to enjoy the day and less press to get to work than you do less in some way yeah less I feel less motivated to get a blog up every day I don't even try haven't tried in quite a while but I do enjoy the things that I get to share they're things I just really want to share because they've been meaningful to me I don't know what that's going to look like I mean the juice lens was all part of that I didn't feel like I had to do it I didn't feel like I had to get this out this is the crowning achievement of my life I just wanted to help people understand Scripture it's helpful to me and that's the goal that's the purpose just helping folks on the journey I'm sure it's different waking up in the morning without the weight of trying to be something isn't it though it really is remember all the seminars we went to about setting goals and use of your time and your competition because if you're going to be significant that means you've got to be more significant than people around you so you're always competing it's always been competition pastoral conferences we're up I got 3,000 new members well how do you only got three well writers are no better writers are no better with how many books are you selling and what's your last advance and all the crud of the industry finding stuff that's valuable to put in the hands of people so I don't even know if I will write again I've got 9 books on my head and heart I just look at them going you know if they're ever going to happen it's going to be because God says why don't you put this together because for me I've said what I've wanted to say in the world and there may be more to say at some point but I've said the best stuff and now I really want to enjoy Sarah and the kids and life and the people we live near and 1,000 oaks and enjoy people like you we're good friends thanks for helping me on a couple of podcasts oh it's been a delightful time much appreciated my friend it's so good to see you again you too, we'll have to do it again you come see me sometime we'll do you will, I love this I've got it on tape now